Thursday, May 8, 2014
INTO THE WORDS For his production of Into the Woods, director T.J. Dawson notes that Stephen Sondheim’s score is often revered as genius. “However, many of his incredible lyrics rush by …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:29AMJUST DANCE I recently read an email from a dance mentor whose advice for performing was simply, “Let it all go and Dance, Motherfuckers!” I couldn’t help but think back to the email as…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:40AMTuesday, May 6, 2014
29 IS THE NEW 19 “If you ever feel stuck in your life,” Broadway, TV, and film heartthrob Jeremy Jordan told the adoring throng at his L.A. debut last night, “go back to your childhood…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:13PMMonday, May 5, 2014
OOPSY DAISY With enough comic personality to rival Fanny Brice, the droll, deft, dirty, daffy, derisive, delirious, and delightful Daisy Eagan, best-known for being the youngest female Tony …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:27PMSaturday, May 3, 2014
NOT PREMEDITATED ENOUGH Despite playwright Evelina Fernández’ ability to take clichéd problems about marriage and turn them into humorous complaints about men tossing underwear on the fl…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:55PMTIME IS RELATIVE FOR THE RELATIVES IN TIME J. B. Priestley’s Time and the Conways is in some ways a creaky play, yet the production at The Old Globe is so lovingly directed, thrillingly ac…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:32AMDIM LIGHTS As part of its 17th Annual Pacific Playwrights Festival, South Coast Repertory presented a play by Adam Rapp. Unlike Theresa Rebeck’s Zealot and Rajiv Joseph’s Mr. Wolf, which…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:16AMFriday, May 2, 2014
WHAT DO YOU HAVE A TASTE FOR? Six weeks before the opening of Sacred Fools’ cannibal play, one of Stage and Cinema’s writers (to whom I will assign the alias “Ethel”) asked if she co…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:39PMThursday, May 1, 2014
WATER IS THE GIFT OF LIFE Water by the Spoonful is the second play in Quiara Alegria Hudes’ “Elliot Cycle,” three stand-alone plays written over an eight-year period. Elliot, A Soldier…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:31PMMonday, April 28, 2014
DON’T PASS ON PASSION When first I saw Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Passion on Broadway in 1994, it was clear that this shattering new work was like nothing that had come before.…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:18PMSaturday, April 26, 2014
THE DROWSY CHAPERONE OPENS AT THE NORRIS Before American Musical Theater was reinvented by Oklahoma! in 1943, musical comedies were constructed piecemeal—a comic star here, a songwriting t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:44PMFriday, April 25, 2014
GET SOME TALE In 1918, Igor Stravinsky and Swiss writer Ferdinand Ramuz wrote L’Histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) a short theatrical work meant to be “read, played, and d…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:09PMTuesday, April 22, 2014
UNBEREAVABLE Bekah Brunstetter’s Be a Good Little Widow is awash with structural issues (ambiguous timeline, disconnected scenes), trite themes and relationships, and a refusal to penetrat…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:24PMMonday, April 21, 2014
WHICH GAME IS ON? With the 2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival set to begin in June, I decided to check out Fathers at a Game. I was curious to see why this 50-minute three-hander was being bille…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:44PMYOU’RE THE TOP, GIRLS For the most part, Joyce, a working class Englishwoman in Ipswich is not a sympathetic or likeable person: She is annoyed by her 16-year-old daughter Angie (who admit…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:37AMSaturday, April 19, 2014
TAYLOR-MADE When a visiting dance company plays Los Angeles, it usually offers pieces which cover both the old and the new. And so it is with Paul Taylor, who presented last weekend at the C…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:49PMTuesday, April 15, 2014
EVERYTHING NEEDS A RETOUCH 30-year-old Jess is a mess. A New York-based dotcom genius, Jess is fraught with low self-esteem, making her an overweight, smelly, anti-social, stressed-out, aggr…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:52PMTuesday, April 8, 2014
INVENTIVE MEMORY PLAY COULD USE JUST A BIT MORE MAGIC Inspired by the work of Johanna Cooper—a broadcaster who was commonly drawn to Jewish tales—Nicola Behrman, David Kersnar, Abbie Phi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:23PMSaturday, April 5, 2014
IS THERE A SHOW DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE? There is a method of political activism called a “zap.” Basically, zaps are militant but non-violent face-to-face confrontations with persons in posi…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:53PMFriday, April 4, 2014
HAVING A “‘S WONDERFUL” TIME It should come as no surprise that the song catalog of George and Ira Gershwin—according to Los Angeles Times—generates about $8 million a …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:28AMFriday, March 28, 2014
I CAN’T CAVE ENOUGH In 1917, Kentucky cave explorer Floyd Collins discovered Crystal Cave. Located in the same area as Mammoth Cave—the longest cave system known in the world—the site …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:16PMTuesday, March 25, 2014
A WITLESS TWILIGHT Noël Coward referred to his final play, A Song at Twilight, as his “swan song.” The last installment of his Suite in Three Keys (a trio of plays set in the same hotel…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:28AMThursday, March 13, 2014
THE FUTURE LOOKS BLIGHT While there are a few missteps in both playwriting and direction, ion theatre’s presentation of two one-acts definitely held my attention. The only similarities bet…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AMWednesday, March 12, 2014
COME JOIN THE CIRCA Brisbane-based Circa creates circus that moves the heart, mind and soul. The company discovers, cultivates and presents works and experiences from the living heart of cir…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:11PMTHE ACTUAL CITY OF DETROIT HAS FEWER PROBLEMS THAN THIS PRODUCTION After watching San Diego REP’s production of Lisa D’Amour’s Detroit, most audience members will be dumbstruck that th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:52PMLBO MAKES A KLINGHOFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE The big story this weekend isn’t the appearance of John Adams’ The Death of Klinghoffer. Since its arrival in 1991, the opera has been encircle…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:30AMTuesday, March 11, 2014
I LOVE LUCIA Lucia di Lammermoor, Gaetano Donizetti’s darkly romantic tale of honor, betrayal, loss and madness, opens this Saturday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and plays through Apri…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:39PMFriday, March 7, 2014
SHAKESOPHRENIC, OR SCHIZSPEARE American director Barry Edelstein knows his Shakespeare. Before being appointed Artistic Director of the Old Globe 16 months ago, he was Director of the Shakes…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:23PMTuesday, March 4, 2014
INTRIGUE? I’M GLAD YOU MASKED The poster of San Diego Opera’s production of Verdi’s A Masked Ball claims “Based on a True Story.” This is not hyperbole. When their production opens…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:48PMWednesday, February 26, 2014
BASKETBALL MUSICAL IS ONE BIG PENALTY You wanna know how great the Chance Theater is? They actually made it a palatable experience to sit through one of the most half-baked and frivolous new…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:45PMSaturday, February 22, 2014
REFLECTIONS ON L.A. DANCE PROJECT The uneven and uninspiring effort presented by L.A. Dance Project last night isn’t bad news; it just means that this nascent company needs to hone its vis…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:30AM 
